the rash charioteer, or driver, in all ages. And so, when Shakespeare wishes to express Juliet's impatience for the dusk in which she hopes that Romeo will come to her, he makes her exclaim:

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

Toward Phoebus' lodging: such a waggoner

As Phaethon would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.

But, in the story, Phaeton brought much more than darkness on the earth. He begged Apollo to give him proof of his fatherly trust, and Apollo swore by Styx that he would deny him none that he asked. But he repented of his promise when Phaeton begged to be allowed to drive the chariot of the Sun for a single day. "None but myself," he said, “may drive the flaming car of day; not even Jupiter, whose terrible right arm hurls the thunderbolts." He warned his son of the cosmic perils of the journey.

The first part of the way is steep... the middle is high up in the heavens, whence I myself can scarcely, without alarm, look down and behold the earth I see stretched beneath me. . . . Add to all this, the heaven is all the time turning round and carrying the stars with it. I have to be perpetually on my guard lest that movement, which sweeps everything else along, should hurry me also away. Suppose I lend you the chariot, what will you do? . . . The road is through the midst of frightful monsters. You pass by the horns of the Bull, in front of the Archer, and near the Lion's jaws, and where the Scorpion stretches its arms in one direction and the Crab in another. Nor will you find it easy to guide these horses, with their breasts full of fire which they breathe forth from their mouths and nostrils.

The foolhardy Phaeton held his father to his pledge, and was soon seated in the glorious chariot which Vulcan had made with axle and wheels of gold, spokes of silver, and a seat gemmed with diamonds and chrysolite. He took the reins and started on his

journey over the earth. He was soon in difficulties. The steeds felt a lighter hand, and rushed headlong from the road. Disaster on disaster followed. The Great and Little Bear were scorched. Other constellations withered. When he neared the earth there was terror below and above. Phaeton had dropped the reins, and was on his knees praying to his father to help. But his prayer was lost in the great cry of dismay from the nations. Forests were aflame, mountains melted, the sea dried up, and mountains beneath it rose into islands. The earth was cracking: cities went up in smoke and fell in ashes. The Nile fled into the desert, where for the greater part of the year it remains to-day. The people of Ethiopia turned black. Neptune himself could not raise his head above the waves he ruled. Earth prayed in her agony to Jupiter to stay the conflagration that would reduce all her life to cinders.

Jupiter heard, and calling all the gods to witness the salvation he intended, hurled a lightning-bolt at the mad charioteer. He was unseated and fell headlong into the River Eridanus, whose nymphs buried him by its waters and raised a tomb to the rash demigod. His sisters mourned him so helplessly and long that Jupiter, in pity, changed them into poplars whose leaves dripped tears of amber on the fatal stream. His friend, Cygnus, wasted away, and him the gods transformed into a swan which for ever haunted the place where Phaeton disappeared. Thus the primitive mind of man, so weak to explain, so quick to imagine, accounted for desert and drouth and the parched places of the world.

Briefer, but even more applicable now, is the story of Icarus, the son of Daedalus, the Athenian inventor, who had so offended King Minos of Crete that to save himself and his son he made wings for both so that they could fly to safety. Daedalus was skilful, and landed at Cumae, where he built a temple to Apollo. But Icarus flew so near the sun that the wax by which his wings were fastened melted and he fell into a part of the Egean Sea,

which was thenceforth named Icarian.

Thus is it that in the

twentieth century A.D. the end of Phaeton warns all drivers and that of Icarus all aviators, while both condemn a too soaring ambition such as any man may indulge to his hurt.

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STORIES OF THE STARS

The permanence of the Greek myths is secured not only by their part in everyday speech and in literature, but by the fact that a great many of them are recorded in the sky above us, that is to say, in the changeless names of planets, stars, and constellations. God asked Job out of the whirlwind:

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?

Or loose the bands of Orion?

On any starlight night you may see these constellations, the one "like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid," the other majestic, and, in the spring, "sloping slowly to the west." These are closely related in a myth. The Pleiads were daughters of Atlas, one of the thirteen Titans named by Hesiod, who in their assault on Olympus were cast by Jupiter into the most abysmal pit of Hades-Tartarus. The Pleiads were pursued by the giant, Orion, as they still are, in seeming, in the night-sky of England. In answer to their prayer for succour Jupiter first turned them into pigeons, then into stars. Of these only six can be seen with the eye, and the story is that the seventh, Electra, quitted her place that she might not see the ruin of Troy, which her son, by Jupiter himself, had founded. Hence Byron's line, "Like the lost Pleiad, seen no more below." Milton, recalling the

passage in Job, and describing the creation of the firmament and

all the heavenly bodies, tells how

The grey

Dawn and the Pleiades before Him danced,
Shedding sweet influence.

The young son of Dædalus, an Athenian sculptor and inventor, Icarus was taught by his father to fly by means of wings fastened by wax to his shoulders. The myth tells how he flew too near the sun and, the wax melting, he fell into the sea and was drowned.

"CASTOR AND POLLUX CARRYING OFF TALAIRA AND PHOEBE, DAUGHTERS OF LEUCIPPUS," BY RUBENS

Munich.

Castor and Pollux, who give their names to one of the best-known constellations of stars, were the twin sons of Jupiter by Leda. They accompanied Jason in his quest of the Golden Fleece. The story here illustrated is that of their violent carrying-off of two daughters of Leucippus whose marriages they had been invited to attend. In Macaulay's fine lay, "The Battle of Lake Regillus," Castor and Pollux figure as "The Great Twin Brethren," who fought for Rome.